


Moving On

by threenimonsongallifrey



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Apocalypse, it's slightly shippy if you squint, some light angst thrown in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 15:00:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8990587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threenimonsongallifrey/pseuds/threenimonsongallifrey
Summary: A secret santa gift for mindblownie who asked for Fifth Doctor era + post-apocalyptic setting.





	

It was odd how one can lose track of time in a time machine, Tegan thought to herself. She had forgotten that odd quirk about the TARDIS- you fall asleep and it could have been half an hour or half a day by the time you woke up. Was Tegan sipping on her morning or afternoon tea? Was she eating lunch or dinner? Tegan supposed that it didn’t matter, not really, but it was just another thing that reminded Tegan of how out of place she truly was. Out of time and out of space.

“Morning!” the Doctor said in his usual cheery tone, making Tegan jump and spill her tea.

“A little warning would be nice before you barge in here,” Tegan muttered as she began to clean up her mess.

“Just testing, Daleks and Cybermen won’t be so kind as to let you finish your tea, will they?” the Doctor reasoned and then Tegan shot him a look and he stayed quiet.

The silence continued until Nyssa walked in and started talking about technological mumbo jumbo with the Doctor and Tegan opted to remain focused on her breakfast until the words “destroy the TARDIS” reached Tegan’s ears. “Wait what’s happening?” she asked Nyssa.

“I was analyzing some of the energy consumption patterns of the TARDIS and there have been some odd energy spikes whenever we pass over a certain location, almost like the TARDIS is using extra energy to propel us away from a black hole,” Nyssa explained.

The Doctor butted in, “And I suggested that we should explore what’s causing these spikes.”

“Yes but as I said that might cause the TARDIS to either be drained of energy or the energy might rip the entire ship apart. We can’t take that risk,” Nyssa pointed out.

The Doctor looked disappointed at the thought of not diving into the middle of trouble and certain death, “If I strengthen the defenses first the chances of anything like that happening are very low.”

Tegan rolled her eyes, “Whenever the chances of something happening are low, it always happens. We can ignore a single weird space thingy and the universe will still be here tomorrow.”

“Just a little peek won’t hurt if we land far enough away,” the Doctor’s curiosity knew no ends.

Tegan gave in, “Well you never listen to me anyways so fine. Just don’t get us sucked into some black hole.”

“Will do!” the Doctor exclaimed as he ran out of the room with Nyssa following, apparently content with this new experiment.

Tegan sat back down to finish her breakfast, “Oh what have we gotten into?” she whispered into her food.

Tegan had only finished the remainder of her eggs when the TARDIS jerked sideways and everything was thrown to the floor in a great crash. “What did you do?!” she screamed in the direction of the control room. As quickly as it had started, the whirring of machines stopped and the TARDIS stabilized with a smooth materialization.

Tegan angrily marched to the control room and turned to the Doctor, “You got us sucked into a black hole, didn’t you?”

The Doctor turned back to press some buttons on the TARDIS, trying to evade the question, “There may have been a slight miscalculation in some of the more delicate areas of the TARDIS although…” the Doctor continued to mutter while Nyssa and Tegan exchanged worried glances.

Nyssa pulled up the coordinates on one of the TARDIS’s many screens and asked, “Doctor, the coordinates keep changing so where are we exactly?”

Tegan looked over at the screen and it was true, numbers kept switching and changing in no order or sequence, just like they were popping up all over space and time. In fact, Tegan was fairly sure that they were popping up all over space and time.

“I have no idea, Nyssa,” the Doctor said and stared at the shifting coordinates. He furrowed his brow, “although the coordinates are getting closer to somewhere…”

The lights dimmed once again and the TARDIS made a sort of distorted materialization, as if the TARDIS still wasn’t sure it wanted to land. Then everything became quiet while the Doctor stared at a wall like he was trying to reason what could have happened with the TARDIS.

Nyssa spoke up first, “The coordinates have stabilized,” she said, “should we look outside?”

The Doctor replied, although seemingly distant from the world, “Going outside would almost certainly result in some sort of mortal peril.”

“So no change then?” said Tegan.

The Doctor didn’t reply but was instead focused on the coordinates, “We’re on Earth. 2016,” he said in disbelief.

“What’s odd about that?” Nyssa asked, “We end up on Earth quite a lot.”

The Doctor looked both Nyssa and Tegan in the eyes, “Something still isn’t right.”

“What happened to you being the brave and curious explorer five minutes ago?” Tegan asked, “You’re not telling us something, aren’t you?”

The Doctor looked insulted, “No, of course I’m not lying to you. I just know that something isn’t right and the TARDIS should not have been affected earlier but it was- that concerns me and I think we should proceed with caution.”

“When have you ever proceeded with caution?!” Tegan half asked and half yelled.

Nyssa decided to step in before the conversation escalated into yet another argument, “Let’s just turn on the scanner and see if we should explore or not.”

“Yes,” the Doctor agreed, “an excellent idea.” Tegan still eyed the Doctor suspiciously, but was nevertheless content will the plan.

The scanner didn’t show much, merely a few rocks and an abandoned building. “There!” the Doctor proclaimed, “nothing there, I think we can leave now.” The Doctor reached for a lever just as someone appeared on the scanner. Whoever it was was running away from something with tattered clothing and stumbled to the nearest boulder and promptly fell down.

Both Tegan and Nyssa ran out of the control room and into danger, but the Doctor lingered and hesitated, something very uncharacteristic of himself. Eventually, the Doctor decided to join the others and the time travellers found themselves in a wasteland. It used to be a city, at least they assumed, but buildings were crumbling to rubble, streets were torn apart, and everything was covered in a thin layer of dust. This was all the time travellers observed before rushing over to the man behind the boulder.

The man frantically looked around as the Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa joined him and the Doctor introduced himself, “Hello, I’m the Doctor and this is Tegan and Nyssa. Who are we running from?” he whispered.

“What do you mean who?” the man asked, staring in confusion at his newfound allies. “Your clothes are clean,” he pointed out.

“Er yes, well I did just get this jacket last week,” the Doctor mentioned, “but the point is why are you running?”

“Who are you people?” the man asked. “There haven’t been clean clothes in London since the infestation.”

“This is London?” Tegan asked, obviously shocked. “In 2016?”

The man shushed Tegan and pointed to something beyond the TARDIS. A blue-skinned alien as tall as a pine tree emerged and walked down the abandoned street, shaking the rubble as it went. It paused just by the boulder, looked around, and spoke to its comrades, “Section 492 has been cleared,” it said in a gravelly voice, “the third phase can commence.” The alien walked away, causing the ground to shake.

Once it was gone everyone let out a deep breath and the mysterious man began to run away in the other direction. “Wait!” the Doctor called out, “We can help!”

The man didn’t answer and never looked back.

“Doctor, what’s going on?” Nyssa asked before Tegan had a chance.

The Doctor looked slightly nervous, “Er- well if you hadn’t noticed there is a slightly alien occupation happening right now but beyond that I really don’t know.”

“Doctor!” Tegan yelled, “This is 2016, there shouldn’t be an alien occupation in London!”

The Doctor glanced around the city, “I should have mentioned this before but we’re in an alternate timeline right now.”

Tegan calmed down a bit, “Like a parallel universe?” she asked.

“Yes, sort of like a parallel universe,” the Doctor agreed, “come on back to the TARDIS and we can return to our timeline.” The Doctor turned around but Tegan was standing still.

“So just because this isn’t our timeline, we can’t help?” Tegan was shocked.

The Doctor turned back to face Tegan, “It’s not that I don’t want to help, it’s just that I don’t think we can help. I’ve met the Hagrifn- those blue aliens- before and I know how they invade worlds. First they unleash viruses and poison into the atmosphere, then they come to the planet and kill the remaining inhabitants, and then they take all of the planet’s resources and leave. It’s a miracle that man was alive and there won’t be many like him.”

“We should be able to do something at least!” Tegan yelled.

“Tegan,” Nyssa said, “the Doctor’s right. I don’t know what we can do here.”

Tegan began to walk away, “I’ll find something to do!”

Tegan walked a few blocks before she began to calm down and notice something odd- there were little pieces of paper blowing across the empty streets. She picked one up. It was a photo of a man and a woman- both smiling and looking happy. She picked up another. It was a photo of a small girl, maybe 8 years old, playing with a dog. Another photo. And another. And another. All of these hundreds of photos were floating through the air. Why? Tegan asked herself.

“Tegan!” Tegan turned her head and saw Nyssa running down the street- so bright and youthful against the ruins of London.

Tegan walked towards Nyssa, “Look at these,” Tegan showed her the photos in her hand. “All of these are just blowing around.”

Nyssa frowned. “They’re memories,” she said softly.

“Memories?” Tegan asked.

Nyssa nodded, “What would do if you knew you were going to die- if everybody was going to die?”

Tegan paused and thought, “Cling to those I love probably.”

“Exactly,” Nyssa said, “all of these people died alone. So they clung to these photos. That was all they had in the end.”

A tear rolled down Tegan’s cheek, “Then how can you stand here and say that we shouldn’t do anything. It’s like saying that these people should have died.”

“Tegan, I know what it’s like to lose a world. I lost everything I knew- my friends, my family, my home- it really hurts. But there was nothing the Doctor could do to save Traken and there’s nothing he can do now.”

Tegan shook her head, “I don’t know how you do it- move past something that big happening. This isn’t even really my planet and I feel torn apart.”

Nyssa sat down on a block of concrete and Tegan joined her, “I felt like that for awhile after Traken was destroyed, but I remembered something my father once told me. ‘If all we focus on is our loss, then we begin to forget what we’re missing,” Nyssa picked up a photograph on the ground and handed it to Tegan, “just celebrate what was instead of what could be.’ After that it became much easier to cope.”

The two women sat in silence for a moment, watching dust blow through the air and memories roll through the street. Finally Tegan spoke, “Thank you, Nyssa. I think I’m ready to go.”


End file.
